End of the car project: Apple returns self-driving license in California
Following the end of the vehicle project at Apple in the spring, the company is now also abandoning the test drives for its algorithms.
Camera car for Apple Maps, seen in Cologne in June 2020: this was definitely not driving without a driver.
(Image: Olaf Gedanitz/Shutterstock.com)
Is this the final end to Apple's driving ambitions? A good six months after the end of the Apple Car project, in which the iPhone manufacturer is said to have invested billions of US dollars, the company has returned its license for autonomous driving on Californian roads, according to a report.
Apple no longer wants to test
As MacReports writes, the permit from the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV), which was supposed to run until April 30, 2025, was "canceled" on September 25 – by Apple itself over the phone. It has no longer been valid since September 27. The approval applied to the so-called "Autonomous Vehicles Program Manufacturer's Testing", in which autonomous vehicles with experimental software are allowed to travel with a safety driver to test – or improve – algorithms.
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After the vehicle project itself would thus also have ended its ambitions in the field of autonomous driving. In the future, the company only seems to want to concentrate on the iPhone integration CarPlay, even if the long-awaited "CarPlay 2.0" is still not available in the first cars. It should be able to map other parts of the vehicle interface and take over the entire dashboard, including the speedometer, if the manufacturer so wishes.
Autonomous driving for seven years
Apple has had permission to test autonomous driving for a very long time; it was granted back in 2017. Most recently, almost 70 cars and 15 drivers are said to have been on the road – significantly fewer than a few years ago. The fact that Apple is interested in this area was public knowledge, as the DMV publishes the licensees. Apple now considers generative artificial intelligence to be more important than cars. Parts of the car team have been transferred to this area.
Apple's vehicle project, once also known as "Project Titan", did not get out of its rut for years. Numerous changes in management and strategy ultimately led to its discontinuation, although the company wanted to open up entirely new sales areas. The goal oscillated between normal electric cars and fully autonomous vehicles that no longer even had a steering wheel. Elon Musk now wants to realize this dream with the Cybercab.
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